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Seriously, too true. I was attempting to point out that a thrown stone very often merely becomes ammunition for the other guy. In Aikido, of course, the point is that even a thrown fist, or sharp elbow, also becomes ammunition for the other guy. Not a martially sound way to fight a battle or structure a reasoned debate. There are more profitable ways to address the issues than implied slights or incitements, and making them more evident just allows them to better avoided in other forms...

None of them probably, but never in the character of a guy who claims to be peaceful and ethical but goes full-contact in a point sparring tournament.

Anyway, if aikido claims to be a tool for character developement, can someone explain me why the amount of politics, ego, abuse, passive-agressiveness and closed mindedness we find in aikido world?

Everything/Everyone has it's 10% to make a value judgement of the whole based on a few is nothing more than a sign of inexperiance. At one time I was a Romping Stomping Airborne Ranger Now I am a Middle Aged Mellow Dude...

One does not survive that process without humbly waking up to the reality of the fragility of life...

And...Any Serious Martial Artist does not survive that process with all that immature BS you're whining about intact.

The Martial Arts are a forge for the body, mind ,and spirit. No one who completes the entire process is the worse for it, and it takes a lifetime to learn.

As O'Sensei (and others) have said...

"Iron is full of impurities that weaken it; Through forging, It becomes steel and is transformed into a razor sharp sword. Human beings develop in much the same fashion."

And when forged....

"The penetrating brilliance of swords Wielded by followers of the way Strikes at the evil enemy... Lurking deep within thier own souls and bodies."

Seriously, too true. I was attempting to point out that a thrown stone very often merely becomes ammunition for the other guy. In Aikido, of course, the point is that even a thrown fist, or sharp elbow, also becomes ammunition for the other guy. Not a martially sound way to fight a battle or structure a reasoned debate. There are more profitable ways to address the issues than implied slights or incitements, and making them more evident just allows them to better avoided in other forms...

And my point is that your extension of the metaphor has done nothing to address the original point (that those without experience in a matter and generally the best people to comment on it), but rather has just served to try and cast MMA in a pejorative light.

"When your only tool is a hammer every problem starts to look like a nail"

So you like apples as opposed to oranges fair enough...How can you extrapolate this to mean that oranges are somehow lacking

Interesting how these conversations always come back to this point. No one has to my knowledge said that Aikido is wrong or lacking. At most we sometimes challenge claims about what it is or is not useful for, which is not a criticism of Aikido in itself. And in fact this thread is much more about defending MMA as it's currently running.

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or infer that some Aikidoka feel MMA is lacking because it's goals are different....

oh, I don't know, maybe talk about it having no character development, appealing to baser nature and being compared to a skanky ho?

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"People who practice Aikido, should be recognized as the best artists in the world.

or indeed talk like that...

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In no way shape or form does MMA have a similiar mindset...It does share some of the same training values but it's about the simple duality of victory or defeat. Does that mean that Aikido or MMA is better???

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. People start MMA for all sorts of reasons. Many to challenge themselves and their own limitations. IOW it's a tool for self improvement.

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Another great analogy I along time ago from an old timer was. "Dummy (me back then)...Life is a smorgasboard of good food with plenty to eat for everybody But some dudes like pickles, and some like peanut butter. The key is enjoy the foods you like and don't stop folks from eating the foods they like just because you don't like them."

in this we are in total agreement.

"When your only tool is a hammer every problem starts to look like a nail"

I try to include the relevent context - but my feeling has always been in these types of discussions where posts get quite long it just gets arduous and confusing if everthing is always reposted in it's entirety. So I attempt to post just the points I am replying to. Any stripping of context is entirely unintentional.

"When your only tool is a hammer every problem starts to look like a nail"

I try to include the relevent context - but my feeling has always been in these types of discussions where posts get quite long it just gets arduous and confusing if everthing is always reposted in it's entirety. So I attempt to post just the points I am replying to. Any stripping of context is entirely unintentional.

I completely understand and I apologize for some of my long posts. I try to put allot of thought and mindfulness into what I say these days as well as check my facts before I post...

MMA's intensity (in what the Marine Corps sometimes calls "adversative" training) is without a doubt proper misogi through shugyo. Misogi shugyo is a powerful teacher whatever its source or particular method. The desire for that legitimate "worn out" palpable feeling is, I hazard a guess, a predominant part if the appeal of MMA. But shugyo is both to remove the slack and polish the spirit. I would say, more charitably, that MMA and most competitive arts, lean one way on that spectrum, and aikido leans the other way.
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No offense intended. But this is one of the major things that draws me away from aikido. Too much repeating the same things over and over just to use japaneese words to sound more insightful.

Example while watching the last UFC, If I said that anderson silva was controling the ring effectively to keep rich franklin out of effective range, an aikido person would usually say something like

"Yes, his concepts of proper maai are inline with his blah blah (Sorry I don't know enough japaeese to even pull it off).

Too much repeating the same things over and over just to use japaneese words to sound more insightful.

Example while watching the last UFC, If I said that anderson silva was controling the ring effectively to keep rich franklin out of effective range, an aikido person would usually say something like

"Yes, his concepts of proper maai are inline with his blah blah (Sorry I don't know enough japaeese to even pull it off).

It really annoys me to no end.

But that is why we use them.

Seriously, your example of making "range" = "maai" illustrates why we use them -- because the concepts have no good shorthand in English with more precision or well-accepted meaning. It took me a long time to get that. "Maai" as used in aikido is not simply range, or space, or even timing -- at least, not only those things - "interval" is closer in the sense used in music.

Maai applies not merely to the physical arrangement but to the playing out of the dynamic in, well, harmonic terms -- physical harmonics. Proper maai is exactly like the standing waves of a plucked string -- if you do not know what is happening, the dynamic may look like a static bent shape spanning a static distance -- but it isn't that at all. If you tried to make a string fit that shape over that distance in static terms you end up with a floppy mess, but if it is simply taut and tuned to the proper harmonic -- it forms itself when struck.

No offense intended. But this is one of the major things that draws me away from aikido. Too much repeating the same things over and over just to use japaneese words to sound more insightful.

Example while watching the last UFC, If I said that anderson silva was controling the ring effectively to keep rich franklin out of effective range, an aikido person would usually say something like

"Yes, his concepts of proper maai are inline with his blah blah (Sorry I don't know enough japaeese to even pull it off).

It really annoys me to no end.

Very strange indeed. I have practiced Aikido and other Japanese Martial Arts for over 30 years and I still don't speak the language.

No offense intended but way should a foreign language have that much emotional control over you?

We watched the Silva/Franklin fight... Aikidoka, MMA fighters and the like and none of us felt annoyed that Silva speaks Portuguese to explain himself. heck most of the better BJJ Fighters I know are from Brazil...

No offense intended but way should a foreign language have that much emotional control over you?

I think Don could have easily made the same remarks to you and Erick.

I didn't post in this thread, but this one and the other one about resisting just drove me to it.

MMA is not a style, it is a training method. As such there is no winning or losing. Luckily there is also not much passive-aggressiveness like the type you see from aikidoka in this thread. You fill others with your own perceptions and then decry when other do the same.

I have met very few aikido who hold anything close to honor. The same goes with BJJ. However, people who train heart and soul in something and for something, well that is another matter.

If you take a bjj student of 6 months and an aikido student of six months, they do not develop honor at different rates. People go into training with certain mindset and cultural conditioning. Someone who might be drawn to aikido might already be drawn to the subservient communal think of stereotypical japanese culture. Because that student acts in a way which may appear to be honorable, that does not in fact make him honorable.

I think that is why you see alot of passive aggressve arguments form aikidoka. Aikido doesn't make someone that way, people who are like that are drawn to aikido much like some bonehead/meathead might be attracted to MMA style training or wrestling.

Overtime, however, the bad elements of each style tend to be weeded out. The most serious injury I have ever had was in aikido class. In fact it was the aggression in the aikido class that made me quit.

Just becasue someone isn't insulting, or isn't resisting fully does not mean that person is not aggressive.

Sorry for being so long and repetitive. I am waiting for my halloween candy.

I didn't post in this thread, but this one and the other one about resisting just drove me to it.

MMA is not a style, it is a training method. As such there is no winning or losing. Luckily there is also not much passive-aggressiveness like the type you see from aikidoka in this thread. You fill others with your own perceptions and then decry when other do the same.

I have met very few aikido who hold anything close to honor. The same goes with BJJ. However, people who train heart and soul in something and for something, well that is another matter.

If you take a bjj student of 6 months and an aikido student of six months, they do not develop honor at different rates. People go into training with certain mindset and cultural conditioning. Someone who might be drawn to aikido might already be drawn to the subservient communal think of stereotypical japanese culture. Because that student acts in a way which may appear to be honorable, that does not in fact make him honorable.

I think that is why you see alot of passive aggressve arguments form aikidoka. Aikido doesn't make someone that way, people who are like that are drawn to aikido much like some bonehead/meathead might be attracted to MMA style training or wrestling.

Overtime, however, the bad elements of each style tend to be weeded out. The most serious injury I have ever had was in aikido class. In fact it was the aggression in the aikido class that made me quit.

Just becasue someone isn't insulting, or isn't resisting fully does not mean that person is not aggressive.

Sorry for being so long and repetitive. I am waiting for my halloween candy.